is dominions, was conveyed by
Dominican friars to Troyes, whither the French court advanced to
receive it, and a gift of ten thousand marks reconciled Baldwin and
his barons to their loss. After all, as the prospects of the State
were so gloomy, it might be some consolation to them to reflect that
so sacred a relic--which had this great advantage over the wood of the
true Cross, that it had not been and could not be multiplied until it
became equal in bulk to the wood of a three-decker--was consigned to
the safe custody of the most Christian King of France.

This kind of traffic once begun, and proving profitable, there was no
reason why it should not continue. Accordingly, the Crown of Thorns
was followed by a large and very authentic piece of the true Cross.
St. Louis gave Baldwin twenty thousand marks as an honorarium for the
gift of this treasure, which he deposited in the Sainte-Chapelle. Here
it remained, occasionally working miracles, as every bit of the true
Cross was bound to do, until the troubles of the league, when it was
mysteriously stolen. Most likely some Huguenot laid hands upon it, and
took the same kind of delight in burning it that he took in throwing
the consecrated wafer to the pigs.

And then more relics were found and disposed of. There was the baby
linen of our Lord; there was the lance which pierced his side; there
was the sponge with which they gave him to drink; there was the chain
with which his hands had been fettered: all these things, priceless,
inestimable, wonder-working, Baldwin sent to Paris in exchange for
marks of silver. And then there were relics of less holiness, but
still commanding the respect and adoration of Christians; these also
were hunted up and sent. Among them were the rod of Moses, and a
portion--alas! a portion only--of the skull of John the Baptist.
Thirty or forty thousand marks for all these treasures! And it seems
but a poor result of the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins that
all which came of it was the transferrence of relics from the East to
the West--nothing else. Such order as the later Greek emperors had
preserved, changed into anarchy and misrule; such commerce as
naturally flowed from Asia into the Golden Horn, diverted and lost; a
strange religion imposed upon an unwilling people; the break-up of the
old Roman forms; the destruction by fire of a third of the city; the
disappearance of the ancient Byzantine families; the ruin of the
wealthy, the